UNC campus looking to tighten security following recent incidents

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March 31, 2014 4:26:20 AM PDT

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. --

Some UNC students are calling for more security on campus following three incidents this past week. First, a knife-wielding man caused a campus shutdown last weekend. Then, a homeless man tried to abduct a student from a music building, and Saturday, a student was arrested for allegedly entering a female student's room naked and trying to assault her.

Last Sunday, UNC's campus-wide alert system was triggered after a man with a knife nearly attacked someone in the student union center. Former student - 31-year-old Jesse Kister - was handcuffed and taken away before anyone was harmed, but for an hour, the school was on lockdown.

"I was upstairs in the Union, we just got an Alert Carolina that something had happened, and it just said that there was a person with a deadly assault weapon. We didn't know what the weapon was, and so we barricaded ourselves in a room and it was about an hour before anyone came to get us or tell us what happened," said student Carlie Cunningham.

Other students were also frustrated by a delay in receiving information.

"One of the things I would like to see is a better Alert Carolina system. Because I know when I heard about the incident I was in my dorm, but I actually found out about it from Facebook before I did the school," said student Anna L'Hommedieu.

That is why many students are calling for changes, including beefing up security at the union.

ABC11 spoke to the student managers who were on duty when the incident happened last weekend, and while they said they could not talk to us while they were working, they did talk to the Daily Tar Heel, and reported that the problem with Sundays is there are not any adults who are working at the union.

The student managers told the Daily Tar Heel they actually called 911 to report the man with a knife, but officers did not arrive for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the student union does not have daytime officers, which is when the incident occurred. According to the school's student newspaper, security only patrols outside overnight.

"I think some more people on guard, I think maybe security guards all the time, something like that, would just give us a little more peace of mind," Cunningham said.

However, despite recent events, students were not deterred from coming back to the obviously popular student union.

"Overall, I think I feel very, very safe on campus. They offer great programs if you're walking home late at night, and I've never had a problem on campus," said student Maggie Engellenner